Hohenstaufen dynasty

Dynasty

A dynasty is a succession of rulers who belong to the same family for generations. A dynasty is also often called a "house", e.g. the House of Saud or House of Habsburg. In the histories of Europe, much of Asia and some of Africa, ruling and noble houses have usually been patrilineal; inheritance and kinship being predominantly viewed and legally calculated through descent from a common ancestor in the male line. Often, however, if the male lineage died out, descendants through females (and sometimes the females themselves) were recognized as entitled to inherit the dynasty's realms and/or wealth.

The term "dynasty" is also used to describe the era during which a family reigned, as well as events, trends and artifacts of that period, e.g. "Ming dynasty vase". In such cases, often the "dynasty" is dropped but the name may be used adjectively, e.g. "Tudor style", "Ottoman expansion", "Romanov decadence".
Historians traditionally consider a state's history within a framework of successive dynasties, particularly with such nations as China, Ancient Egypt and the Persian Empire. Much of European political history was dominated, successively and together, by dynasties such as the Carolingians, the Capetians, the Habsburgs, the Stuarts, the Hohenzollerns and the Romanovs. Until the nineteenth century, it was taken for granted that a legitimate function of a monarch was to aggrandize his dynasty, that is, to increase the territory, wealth and power of family members.

Dynasties may change due to war, but also when a king fails to produce an heir, sometimes resulting in a maternal relative's succession. The dynasty usually then takes the name of that successor's paternal family name.

Dynasts

A ruler in a dynasty is sometimes referred to as a dynast, but this term is also used to describe any member of a reigning family who retains succession rights to a throne. For example, following his abdication, Edward VIII of the United Kingdom ceased to be a dynastic member of the House of Windsor.

In historical and monarchist references to formerly reigning families, dynastic describes a family member who would have succession rights if the monarchy's rules were still in force. For example, after the 1914 assassinations of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his morganatic wife Sophie von Hohenberg, their son Max was bypassed for the Austrian throne because he was not a Habsburg dynast. Even since abolition of the Austrian monarchy, Max and his descendants have not been considered the rightful pretenders by Austrian monarchists, nor have they claimed that position.

The term "dynast" is sometimes used to refer to agnatic descendants of a realm's monarchs, and sometimes to those who hold succession rights through cognatic royal descent. The term can therefore describe overlapping but distinct sets of people. For example, David Armstrong-Jones, Viscount Linley, a nephew of Queen Elizabeth II through her late sister, Princess Margaret, is in the line of succession to the British crown, and in that sense is a British dynast. Yet he is not a male-line member of the royal family, and is therefore not a dynast of the House of Windsor.

Political families in Republics

Though in elected governments rule does not pass automatically by inheritance, political power often accrues to generations of related individuals even in Republics. Eminence, Influence, familiarity, tradition, genetics, and even nepotism may contribute to this phenomenon.